Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Bobby Dalton Roy | Sacramento, CA
Stephanie Feuer-Beck | Roslindale, MA
Susan Zyphur | La Mesa, CA
I didn't learn about slavery, aside from that it happened, and I definitely didn't learn about Reconstruction or Jim Crowe. This is what contributed to my white supremacy and confusion about the complaints of BIPOCs - I was taught that racism was solved through an American history curriculum that didn't teach me about American history. Our society and our economy can no longer support racist history curriculum.
Maria DeFelice | Framingham, MA
The upsurge in white supremacy and the continuing attacks on people of color show the necessity of teaching this important era in U.S. history.
Sarah Moore | Austin, TX
Reconstruction is a pivotal and essential part of American history!
WILLIAM CONNERS | Philadelphia, PA
Reconstruction represents that moment of hope when the agency of Black Americans, combined with the support of some white Americans, forced open a window of justice and equality until white supremacists slammed it shut.
Alicia Jones | Lewes, DE
Iworked with the committee on HR198 in Delaware to add Black history to the statewide curriculum.
Kimberly Duncan | Silver Creek, GA
Please allow for curriculum that allows indigenous children to be taught their history by their leaders and elders/teachers leading the community and have a voice to what their children learn.
Linda Smart | Eugene, OR
As we look at our country today, there are so many issues that we can look back to Reconstruction as the roots of the issues facing us. Our prison system, unequal access to housing and education, voting rights and many more. If we fail to look back at our history, it is difficult to understand how we are where we are with those critical issues. We have constructed the systems that we are having to live with presently. The White supremacy and oppression of people of color were all rooted in out past and without that understanding, it is difficult to move forward with meaningful change.
Melinda Lawson | Delmar, NY
Maureen Davis-White | San Diego, CA
Lessons from the Color of Law including redlining and our government’s active racism in zoning, lending and segregating based on the color of your skin should be taught as well. We all need to learn from the past, so we can move towards a truly equal society who embraces diversity of all kinds v
Andrea Foroughi | Schenectady, NY
Anonymous | Providence, RI
Nick Bertram | Oregon City, OR
Understanding the civil rights movement of the 1950s & 1960s is much easier with a historical foundation that begins with the broken promises, violence, and anti-democratic disenfranchisement legislation of Reconstruction.
Sarah Connelly | Winter Garden, FL
Ashley Kannan | Oak Park, IL
We struggle mightily with connecting what is happening in our classroom to what is happening in the world outside of it. We lose students because of our failure to meet this challenge. Centering Reconstruction in such a way as to serve as a bridge between both worlds can help us find success where it is sorely needed.
Gery Gerst | Olympia, WA
Without Reconstruction, and the century long struggle that followed over the 14th, the story of the Civil War is hollow. 1865 is but the end of battle, and the military victory of the North... but Reconstruction is about the CULTURE war that followed/began. Without that study kids can't understand the Civil Rights movement, the statues controversy, Red-lining, Tulsa 1921, ETC. Without that narrative they can't understand and appreciate Hiram Revels, the KKK, Ida B. Wells, or the Diaspora. It's like getting 1/3 of the way through a book then dumping it right now; the story wasn't over in 1865...so the history taught shouldn't be either.
Marian Killian | Petaluma, CA
We need to teach the Reconstruction era legislation and the derailing of all that legislation to give K-12 students the intellectual skills they need for citizenship, voting and civic engagement in this hot mess of a country. I would say that the failure to teach the reconstruction era (to my baby boomer era high school students) left a huge vacuum in my thinking that allowed me a kind of "magical thinking", allowed me to equate the neo-liberal Obama presidency with a "post racial" America.
Alison Brown | Berkeley, CA
Morgan Pflederer | Chicago, IL
Sarah Hollingsworth | Campbell, CA
Christine Clark | Henderson, NV
Alma Rodríguez | Brooklyn
It is important to teach Reconstruction so that students can make connections to today’s social and political landscape. They can understand how inequality was institutionalized into law systems in the south and beyond. They can also see our urgent need to correct these inequities that have unfortunately persevered from even before the civil war.
Anonymous | Williston Town of, VT
Connie Allison | Geneva, NY
Twitter
Google plus
LinkedIn